Harriers are great - for landing with no nose wheel

How to turn a fault into a great piece of news
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28065288

I thought he could have been a little more delicate in that last 10-20 feet

That's right, it's to make sure the aircraft continues to descend once it gets into ground effect. Otherwise it will go back into a hover close to the deck until the pilot pulls more power off.

To all intents and purposes it seems he did a normal landing - but with a stool instead of a nosewheel. I don't recall the Falklands Harriers coming down that plumb - but no doubt the systems are rather better now!

Does anyone know the history of this incident?

http://youtu.be/BD4oiBSXGDM

Pretty decent shot by the pilot but how did he end up so list he needed to land in a cargo ship?.

That was Ian 'Soapy' Watson.

He was one of my QFI's (Qualified Flying Instructor) when I went through Pilot Training.

As he told me:

He got airborne on an EMCON SILENT sortie (ie Mother - the Carrier- would not be broadcasting, which included not broadcasting the TACAN (navigation beacon).

Sometime after getting airborne his IN (Inertial Navigation) platform 'Ran Away' ie it started to be extremely erroneous.

At recovery fuel time 'Soapy' could not find 'Mother' on RADAR, despite what his Nav Kit was telling him. In fact he was some 300 mile from 'Mother'

Having decided to ditch, he found a contact on his RADAR - a trawler. So he landed on it.


He was lambasted by the Navy for his exploit.


His telling of the story was quite awesome - having landed on, he found the entire crew drunk, so he acted as 'Officer of the Watch' until they sobered up!

Awesome stuff.

surely giving the guy a much wider bench to park the nose on would have made it many multiples easier!